It's the movement that came to define 20th century architecture. A radical departure from centuries of architectural thought, it soon traveled around the world promising that through rational design and new materials, architecture could build a better world. Its impact was so great that it never truly went away.
and continues to inspire architects today. I'm talking about modern architecture. But where did modernism come from? What makes a modernist building? And why has it endured all these years?
I'm Steve, an architecture writer, and join me as we answer the question, What's modern architecture? This is Architecture 101 and Classes in Session. Modernism isn't a set style per se. It began more as a vibe, a blanket term to describe all of the new buildings being built at the turn of the 20th century. It was heavily inspired by other artistic movements emerging in Europe, specifically Expressionism, Futurism, and Cubism.
These movements were in turn inspired by new technologies and materials and the role they played in society and art. The first use of the term modern architecture was coined by architects Otto Wagner in 1896 as the title for a speech he gave while professor at Vienna's Academy of Fine Arts. In that speech he said that quote, new human tasks and views called for a change or reconstitution of existing forms.
Meaning humans can't just keep making copies of old styles because we've changed. Our society has changed. Instead we needed to rise to the present moment and design buildings that represented our time.
German philosophers would refer to this as the Zeitgeist. With this as the framework, architects all over the world reconstituted existing forms in their own ways. Think of the works of Anthony Gaudi and Louis Sullivan, for example.
Both exhibited wildly different styles, and yet both would be considered modernists. because they equally represented the new. Modernist architects of every style were revolutionizing architecture by creating buildings that were daring and unlike anything people had seen before.
And then came the Bauhaus. The influential art school in Germany started by this man, the pioneering modernist architect Walter Gropius in 1919. The school was the most influential school in the modernist movement because of their desire to rid architecture of ornamentation and advocate for rational design. It would be the place where architects like Mies van der Rohe taught and formed their ideas. Mies would go about designing the Barcelona Pavilion in 1929, which demonstrated that Bauhaus' ideas of unadorned buildings with free open spaces. It's also where Mies developed his mantra, less is more.
Elsewhere in Europe, modern architecture found its biggest figure, L'Arcabousier. He was influenced by cubism in both his art and architecture. He thought of architecture as an object in space. He also thought deeply about architecture and its relationship to society.
He was inspired by machines and fast transportation. and in his time wrote several influential books, And in his time wrote several influential books, most notably a book called Toward an Architecture. most notably a book called Toward an Architecture, where he famously said that a house was, quote, a machine to live in. He exhibited this and many other ideas in houses like the Villa La Roche Jeunette and Villa Savoie.
In this, Le Corbusier would come to represent the architect as idealist. While it might seem at wide glance that modernism was a pure aesthetic movement, its roots were firmly entrenched in changing society into a utopia. Many modernist architects believed that architecture held the key to tackling the problems facing our world.
They believed that diseases would be eradicated through better ventilated spaces and more natural light, and that homelessness and poverty would be eliminated through better housing design. For modernists, a building was not just about providing shelter, but serving as a blueprint for a better future. One where the lives of individuals would be better. An inspiring and ambitious goal that would drive the movement for years to come. come.
As modernism grew in popularity among architects, New York's Museum of Modern Art took note by creating their seminal 1932 exhibition. Modern Architecture, international exhibition curated by Philip Johnson and Henry Russell Hitchcock, showcased several prominent architects of the movement, including Gropius, Richard Neutra, Cabousier, Mies, and Frank Lloyd Wright. Interestingly, in the exhibition Johnson and Hitchcock decided to coin a new term, the term.
to link these varying architects together by calling their work part of the so-called international style. According to them, the name was given because the style's quote simultaneous development in several different countries and because of its worldwide distribution. It was also given the term because it represented an architecture style seemingly removed from cultural context. A building like Villa Savoy could be built anywhere and still maintain its architectural quality.
An international building could be described as a building lacking any ornamentation, with steel, concrete, and glass as primary building materials. It would become the defining faction of the modernist movement, so much so that the two terms would become interchangeable for years. In the post-war years, modernism continued to represent an idealism of a better world. It would also mark the most prolific period of many modernist architects, particularly Mies van der Rohe and Le Corbusier. Many modernist architects immigrated to America at the start of the war and made their practices in the States, attracting the attention of business titans looking to showcase their company's wealth and prestige and show the forward-thinking nature of their companies.
A great example of this would be the Lever House. and the Seagram building in New York. Both broke from the traditional setback limestone skyscrapers of New York's past. Looking around the world, modernism began to sport regional flares. From Miami to California, modernism began to take shape, adapting to new environments.
In Miami, Morris Lampedus added touches of whimsy to the ideals of modernism to create dramatic and playful beachside resorts. Philip Johnson designed his iconic and controversial glass house, Followed up quickly by Mies who designed his version of the glass house for Dr. Edith Farnsworth outside Chicago in 1953. It showed the purity of modernism through its simplicity. Down in Brazil, Oscar Niemeyer worked to create a modernist utopia in Brasilia with sculptural buildings like the Brasilia Cathedral in 1970. Le Corbusier created the awe-inspiring Notre-Dame de Haunt in 1955 by playing with concrete to create sculptural forms and using light and shadow to create drama. Throughout the 1950s and 60s, it seemed that modernism would never run out of steam. Until it did.
Over time, the idealism of modernism began to die out. It was no longer about utopia so much as corporate identity. By 1969, all of the major pioneering modernist architects, from Le Corbusier to Mies to Gropius, had died, leaving behind a new generation of architects perfectly content with copying the masters.
The skylines of cities around the world became homogenized and inhumane. Thank you. What's more, many idealistic concepts of urbanism had disastrous results in practice.
Specifically, the ideas of Corbusier's Towers in a Park concept, which came to define poorly designed public housing projects around the world, most notably Pruitt-Igoe in St. Louis. Upon its demolition in 1972, architectural historian Charles Jencks wrote, that was the day modern architecture died. But did it really die? No.
While other styles have come and gone, modern architecture has remained. With each generation, architects continue to build upon what the original modernists started. Architects today are still urged to let form follow function, and incorporate new materials, and to work to design a better place for everyone.
Though over 100 years old, the movement continues to thrive. And why? Because modernism hits on something timeless.
It offers us an ideal, a hopeful beacon. that channels our humanistic desire to be optimistic, to never mean content with the way things are, but to rise to the present moment, to make today a prologue to our promising tomorrow. Thank you everyone for watching. For more information on modern architecture, visit arcbydesign.com. And don't forget to subscribe for more videos from All Things Architecture.
Anyway, my name's Steve. Thanks again for watching. I'll see you next time on Architecture 101.